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St. Bonaventure English master's program opens doctoral doors

May 20, 2013 |

By Andrea Westerlund, ’10, ’12

ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y. — The bubble of tension veiling St. Bonaventure University has burst. With another semester at a close, many students and professors look forward to a three-month reprieve from the stresses of academic life.

But for others, such as Megan Faver Hartline and Victor Zabala, this marks the close of one chapter and the beginning of another. They graduated from SBU’s English master’s program on May 12 and will be continuing their scholastic journey in the fall as they begin their doctoral studies.

Hartline, a native of Lufkin, Texas, who received her B.A. in English from Abilene Christian University, will begin work toward a Ph.D. in Composition and Rhetoric at the University of Louisville in the fall.

Zabala, originally from San Salvador de Jujuy, Argentina, will begin his doctoral studies in Spanish Literature at the University of Utah in the fall after serving as a Spanish teaching assistant at St. Bonaventure. He completed his undergraduate degree in English Language Teaching at the English Teachers Training College José Tello in Argentina, which included one year of undergraduate work at St. Bonaventure University as a Fulbright Scholar.

With ever-present deadlines to meet, tomes of canonical literature to read and critical approaches to decipher, a strong network of support is critical to those completing a master’s degree. That support is woven into the English graduate program at St. Bonaventure. Given the small size of the program, students get to know one another quickly.

The connection can be invaluable, says Hartline.

“We all come to rely on and work with each other,” she says. “Your classmates become a huge resource for you as friends and people you can rely on to look over your work and talk through ideas.”

Zabala echoes the sentiment and adds that he has always felt welcome in the program and that discussion with classmates has often helped him to expand and develop his own ideas on class material.

This sense of community not only includes students but professors as well.

“In Argentina, you don’t get to see the professors outside of class; you don’t get to talk to them,” he says. “Whereas, here you get the opportunity to see professors, set up appointments, and then meet with them and get their help.”

The collective knowledge and experience of the English faculty is especially helpful to those applying to Ph.D. programs.

“I don’t think I could have gotten this far without Dr. [Daniel] Ellis’ help,” says Hartline. “He was great as a thesis adviser and helped me prepare materials for my Ph.D. applications, which is a huge process.”

Ellis, an assistant professor of English, closely oversees multiple facets of the graduate program, including the Teaching and Learning Fellowship. Another unique aspect of the graduate program, the Fellowship allows second-year students to independently teach a section of Composition and Critical Thinking, the freshman composition course at St. Bonaventure.

To become ready for this potentially daunting responsibility, the first year of graduate studies is spent tutoring undergraduate students in writing as well as shadowing a professor while they teach composition.

This program was one of the major selling points for Hartline.

“It is a huge deal at the master’s level,” she says. “There are not many programs doing that anymore and it’s incredibly helpful in the Ph.D. application process and even in the job application process.”

What sets the program apart, says Dr. Ellis, “is our commitment to a total learning experience. Our M.A. students work through not only their own scholarly work, but learn to be tutors and teachers as well, with close support from faculty. Teaching younger students how to write and be scholars then not only serves as valuable experience for the M.A. students, but reinforces what they're learning themselves.”

This emphasis on working through ideas as opposed to blindly regurgitating the canon is something that struck Zabala as important.

“We got to learn about a variety of works so we got a broader view of literature,” he says. “We learned about works that are being discovered now. For my thesis, I wrote about two novels that aren’t widely known. They’re not in the canon, but they tell us a lot about the historical context.”

Both Zabala and Hartline defended graduate theses that were comprised of original, and groundbreaking, research. A predicament often faced by those studying literature is how to say something that has not yet been said. Students of the graduate program are able to utilize various professors’ expertise as well as a myriad of university resources to build their own unique ideas about literature.

Those ideas and theories that begin to germinate in graduate school will ideally come to fruition as doctoral dissertations and conference presentations.

“My thesis project really helped my Ph.D. applications because a couple of different program advisers for programs where I was accepted really liked the work that I had been doing,” says Hartline.

Zabala also plans on pursuing study related to the subject of his graduate thesis. Additionally, Zabala cites his thesis adviser, Dr. Megan Walsh, assistant professor of English, as a vital catalyst for his research, inspiring his work and helping him to develop his ideas into a full-length thesis.

Walsh feels confident that Zabala’s graduate work puts him in good stead for the Ph.D. program.

“Victor is poised to develop a major research project that expands his M.A. thesis work to include ideas about race and linguistic interactions in the Americas when he joins the Spanish Literature Ph.D. program at the University of Utah this fall,” Walsh says.

Although Hartline and Zabala will be pursuing doctoral degrees a great distance from St. Bonaventure, they hope the network of friends, colleagues and mentors they have gained over the past two years will remain a source of encouragement they can draw on.
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About the University: As a leading Catholic Franciscan University, St. Bonaventure University cultivates graduates who are confident and creative communicators, collaborative leaders and team members, and innovative problem solvers who are respectful of themselves, others, and the diverse world around them. We are establishing pathways to internships, graduate schools and careers. Our students are becoming extraordinary